


If Wishes Were Horses

by thesardine



Series: Alphabet Extras [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky gets busy, F/M, Light Pining, Multi, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve watches, depression era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 17:57:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4314816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesardine/pseuds/thesardine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There's a big condition here, because the coat is for Steve and it's got to be presented to him right, as in, the most sideways, stupid, backwards way imaginable because Steve would rather freeze to death than think about what it feels like for his best friend to have to watch him freeze to death all winter.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Wishes Were Horses

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is complimentary to but not dependent upon [Sing Me the Alphabet](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4123216).

So he's balanced on top of a garbage can around back of the building, trying to reach the fire escape so he can climb up and apologize to Marcy without her pop knowing and giving him an earful. Thing is, he's been hauling too much weight down at the docks and he thinks he put his shoulder out or something, did something like strained a muscle or pinched a nerve or something; he's not a doctor. But he's trying to make it easy on his shoulder, climbing up to the lowest rung, and that's how come he falls on his ass, knocks all the trash over into a puddle and scares all the rats out of hiding.

"Jesus fuck," Bucky hisses. A light comes on on the lower level and Buck says fuck it, leaps for the lowest rung and hauls himself up and wrenches his shoulder, it's what he gets for being a cad.

Marcy's window is on the third story, and if he's lucky he can convince her to sneak out of it to come see him, but he wouldn't bet on it tonight. He raps on the window a few times and calls out, "Marcy. Hey, Marcy." It takes him getting a little noisy before she finally throws the window open and says "Bucky Barnes, what the hell do you want?"

Good lord almighty, Marcy Coulter is a looker, even with her hair all rolled up the way girls do. He never should have been rude to her, it's just he gets in a mood sometimes, he can't help it. He gets in a mood.

"Marcy, I'm sorry," he says. "I was a real heel back there, and I didn't want you going to bed thinking about what a heel I am."

"I wasn't thinking about you in bed, Barnes, trust me."

Yeah she's good and pissed. "I don't think you talk too much. I think you're beautiful. I'm sorry I said those things."

"Plenty of fellas think I'm beautiful without thinking I'm stupid, too."

"I didn't say you were stupid, I don't think you're stupid, Marcy. I just-" he grasps for a way to describe it- "I just got in a mood," he finishes lamely. Sometimes he just gets in a mood.

Marcy looks him up and down, and softens up a little, not a lot. "Well, all right then," she says. "But you owe me brunch on Sunday at the Plaza."

Good lord, the gorgeous broads always have the most expensive taste. He can't afford the Plaza, not this time of month or ever, but he says "Okay," and she gives him one of those arch looks some girls are so good at, make a guy want to get on his knees and beg. Well, she shuts her window before it gets to that, and now he's got two flights and a jump into an alley slick with trash now, thanks to him. He shovels up as much as he can of it back into the can with his hands. Who cares anyway? You get stinky no matter what you do.

It's late but not that late, not too late to get a drink if he wants, but he doesn't feel like it. He thinks, maybe he'll get home and Steve'll have a headache real bad and he'll let Buck be nice to him. Then he feels like a real piece of shit, hoping his friend feels sick just because he had a rotten date. Bucky steps in a hole in the sidewalk and twists his ankle. It hurts real sharp and he has to limp for half a block, but that's what you get for being a piece of shit thinking mean things about people because you're in a mood.

 

On Conway there's a second hand shop, and it's closed by now but he takes a glance in and there's this great looking coat in the window, looks like wool, and nice and long. It needs darning here and there but it's a good looking coat and it would fit Steve, maybe a little big, but he even maybe could take the lining out of his old coat and sew it into this one, and be double warm. At eight bucks, the price is a little steep, but Buck can swing it if he doesn't take Marcy to brunch. The hardest part is getting Steve to take the damn thing. He knows Steve doesn't have the money. He'll say "My old coat's fine," but Bucky can't do another winter like this last one. He can't.

He'll think of something.

 

It's late by the time Bucky finally gets home, after clearing his head for so long walking around. Steve's already in bed. Buck doesn't really bother washing up, just washes his face in the basin down the hall. It was sort of misty out all night. Not raining, but his shirt's all damp, and his trousers too, especially, from falling on his ass at Marcy's. Bucky strips out of everything and climbs into bed, listening to Steve snore. He doesn't really snore real loud but he does this quiet kind of snore from the back of his throat, it means Bucky can rest easy. It's funny how much you can love a guy, his snoring keeping you up all night sometimes and you're glad for it because it means...it means he exists, and was born, and was in your life, and is there. Right there. What are the odds? Sometimes he feels so lucky he can't stand it.

 

Bucky volunteers to run out for bread the next morning because it'll take him past Conway street. He counts out his savings while Steve's in the john, and if he's careful he can swing it. Just gotta lay off the dates for a while. A dame can eat up your money quicker than an orphan in a gingerbread house. He throws on his jacket and hurries out before Steve gets back.

 

Bucky slides the money across the counter but keeps his palm over it and looks the shopkeeper dead in the eye.

"I'm gonna take it," he says, "but." There's a big condition here, because the coat is for Steve and it's got to be presented to him right, as in, the most sideways, stupid, backwards way imaginable because Steve would rather freeze to death than think about what it feels like for his best friend to have to watch him freeze to death all winter. "I need you to keep it in the window. And I need you to lower the price tag to two dollars. And you can't sell it to anybody, I already bought it. So if anybody asks, it's already bought."

The shopkeeper looks like this ain't by half the craziest thing someone's asked him to do, and Bucky takes his hand off the money, and into the till it goes.

"Make it nice and big, the price tag," Bucky tells him.

 

So later, when he and Steve are walking down to the park, they pass the shop on Conway and Bucky says, "Hell, look at that, that's your size, Stevie, right?"

Steve glances in the window and there's a big tag on the coat that says $2.

"I already got a coat," Steve says.

"Yeah, but you could use a warmer one, right?"

Steve starts walking. "My old one's fine," he says.

Bucky jogs up after him. "Your call," he says, and shoves his hands in his pockets.

 

Last winter Steve had gotten real sick. Real sick, deathly ill, trembling and sweating and puking and diarrhea, the works. Bucky was 90% certain he was gonna kick the bucket. Since he thought maybe it might be his last chance and he didn't want Steve to die alone, he'd stripped out of his work clothes and climbed into bed with him and just pulled him close to keep him warm. Steve's bones were like bird's wings under his hand, so skinny the knobs on his spine were sticking out, you could've played his ribs like a washboard. He'd tucked his elbows in, his fists up under his chin, and touched his forehead right to Buck's chest and Buck had wrapped his arms around him and breathed in against his hair. So scared he felt like crying. But Steve had finally got to sleep and his fever broke and he didn't have to get up once that night to puke or use the pot. When Buck wasn't so scared, he stroked the short hairs on the back of Steve's neck and the spot where it's soft, behind his ear.

After, a while after, Bucky had been laying with a girl and she had her shirt off because her folks weren't home and they were up to no good, and they were laying there not doing anything and she was dozing off or something a little, maybe, and Bucky had traced his fingers up her spine and brushed her hair from the back of her neck, and started thinking about Steve and the back of Steve's neck and his skin that was smooth and soft like this dame's, when he'd touched it that time. Then sometimes just when he was by himself, he would think about Steve, like that.

 

It's getting late at the park and Steve's been drawing and Bucky's been drawing a little too, but he's not an artist like Steve. He only draws goofy stuff he thinks up to make Steve laugh, like a dog walking around like a person, with an alligator on a leash, smoking a cigar. He draws 'em and says "Here you go, Stevie," and tosses them onto Steve's sketchbook and Steve smiles and shakes his head. Mostly when they're at the park, Bucky just watches the beautiful women and their kids, and he thinks about how tomorrow's going to be Sunday and he's always a little down on Sundays because it means the next day is going to be Monday and he's gotta be back at the docks. Sometimes Buck thinks if he has to spend one more minute at the docks he's gonna lose his mind, jump right off the deep end. But it's work and work's scarce and he knows he should be grateful. He is grateful, to have some money coming in, enough to put away some for the winter, when they need it. But sometimes he just feels tired of everything feeling like shit all the time. Why does everything gotta be such shit? Plus, and he's gotta go back against Marcy because he doesn't have the money to take her out now. He's not that cut up about it, he doesn't guess. Maybe he can make it up to her next month. Or maybe he won't bother. She does talk a lot, and it's not real interesting, even though she is beautiful.

They head home and Buck sends Steve on ahead because he has to double back for the winter coat. He thanks the shopkeeper and bundles it in newspaper and tucks it under his arm. Steve can't afford eight but he can scrape together two, and Buck will let him put it on a payment plan or something even though he wishes Steve would just let him buy him the damn coat.

 

Steve's chopping cabbage when Bucky gets home and he eyes the package like you'd eye a mangy dog at the dinner table. His chopping gets a little intense, so Buck can tell he's mad, but Buck sets the package on the table and shucks his jacket, hangs it on the rack near the door.

"I said I already got a coat," Steve says.

"What you got is a relic, pal."

"I don't need you spending your money on me."

Suddenly the last thing on earth Bucky wants to do is have this fight with Steve. Why can't he just take the goddamn coat and shut up about it?

"Take it back tomorrow," Steve says. Jesus Christ!

"Take the goddamn coat," Buck says, louder than he'd meant to. Why can't Steve let him take care of this one damn thing?

Steve is so tense his shoulders are coming up around his ears and the back of his neck's going red. "I take enough of your charity," he says, and the fight somehow drains right out of Bucky and gets worse at the same time. He drags his hands through his hair like he'll pull it out.

"It's not charity to do something for a friend he's too stubborn to do for himself."

Steve slams the knife down and faces him. "It's not about being stubborn."

"Then what, Steve? You think I care more about eight dollars than you dying?"

_"Eight?"_

Shit.

"The tag said two, Buck."

"Two, then. I meant two."

Steve looks at him but Buck can't look him in the eye.

"No, you didn't," Steve says. He stares at Buck, hard, and suddenly Bucky can't take it anymore, he can't fight like this with Steve. He grabs his coat off the hook and shrugs into it. He's running away.

Why can't Steve just let him be nice, for once?

 

Bucky's got nowhere in particular to go and he thinks about looking up Marcy but he goes to see Edna instead. Edna lives at the other end of town from Marcy and she's not as beautiful. She's not beautiful at all, in fact. Bucky only goes to see her because she knows how to have a good time.

He snags her a couple flowers from the park, and when he knocks on her door, her father answers in a sweaty undershirt that's seen better days.

"Is Edna in," he asks, with all the manners his ma taught him. Mr. O'Hare looks him up and down, then hollers over his shoulder, EDNA! and leaves the door hanging open as he goes back in. Edna comes to the door a minute later, in a plain blue dress and her hair pinned up on her head.

"What do you want," she says, flatly. Bucky cocks his head with a grin and presents her the flowers.

"I thought you might grace me with your company this evening."

Edna cranes her neck over her shoulder, then steps outside and shuts the door. "You can keep your flowers."

He clutches his heart and says, "You wound me."

He tucks a black eyed susan into her button hole and she raises one eyebrow at him in that way some girls have, but instead of making him want to beg, it makes him laugh.

"Can I buy you a drink?" he says.

"No. But we can go for a walk if you want."

 

Edna has a long nose and hair that's more frizz than curls, and one front tooth overlaps the other. They walk down to the waterfront and sit on a crate and she pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

"You want one?" she asks.

"Nah."

She lights up and puts them away, then blows a thin plume of smoke into the air. They sit there kind of quiet for awhile. Bucky doesn't feel much like talking now that they're here. He didn't really want a date, he just thought it would be nice to go see Edna.

"How's your pops doing these days?" he asks. Her mouth presses into a flat line and she shrugs and shakes her head. Bucky knows Mr. O'Hare ain't doing so good since the Missus died, jeez, almost two years ago, now. Edna takes another hard drag on her cigarette, then taps the ash off even though it doesn't need it yet.

"Sick of everything being such shit," she says. Boy, don't he know it. Edna works seven days a week down at the dressmaker, she could probably sew an evening gown in two minutes flat, if anyone ever needed an evening gown for something, which they don't in this part of town. Bucky's grateful for the job he's got but sometimes he wishes he could do something different. Not dressmaking, obviously, but maybe someplace interesting where you don't need a whole lot of education. Like at the museum. Bucky would be a security guard at the museum in a heartbeat, plus you could learn all about different kinds of stuff like last year when the mummy exhibit came to Manhattan and Bucky ate nothing but potatoes for weeks to save enough for him and Steve to go. If you worked at the museum, you could see everything that came through. Or like at the Brooklyn Museum, they had a great collection on Egypt and all that stuff, that was there all the time. And if you worked there, you would get paid to read it instead of the other way around. But he didn't think a guy like him could get a job in a nice place like that. Probably the security guards who worked there all loved it and would never retire. If Bucky worked at the museum he would sneak and let Steve in the back so he could study the paintings without having to pay. He'd love to work at the museum. Maybe they would need a bunch of stuff lifted up one day. That's his job now. Lift stuff up. Put it somewhere else. Edna offers him the cigarette and he takes a long drag on it and hands it back. If he worked at the museum, he'd get Edna a job there too, at the front desk. Or if she wanted she could work her way up to organize the exhibits or something. Then also he would get Steve an exhibit at the museum, too, so people could see how good he was. He'd shovel shit for the museum if he could make that happen, except Steve would probably tell him to get stuffed, he don't take no charity, like anyone ever does it all on their own, like any of those fancy famous artist don't use connections to get stuff. Sometimes Steve's so stupid, it kills him.

"What's eating you?" Edna asks. Bucky flashes her a grin.

"Nothing when I'm with you, doll." He gives her a brash peck on the cheek and she digs her fingers through his hair to shove him away with her whole hand, but she's joking, and she's smiling a little as she smokes her cigarette. He tilts his head towards her and she holds the cigarette for him as he takes another drag. He loves Edna, really. He's asked her to marry him half a dozen times but she always says no.

Edna takes the last drag while Bucky's still holding in the smoke, trying to see how long he can hold it. She tosses the butt away and says, "How about that drink?" Bucky lets all the smoke out in a big gust and rubs his hands up and down his knees.

"I'll split one with you," he says. He doesn't have the money to go out, he just didn't feel like being alone.

"I got you covered," Edna says, and stands up, straightening her dress.

"I can't have a dame buy me drinks," Bucky yelps, but he's kidding. "What kind of man does that make me?"

"Broke, like everyone else," Edna says, and starts walking. Bucky jumps up and jogs after her, and everything's glowing orange from the sun going down, and even all the shit and the trash and the garbage looks kind of pretty like that, especially Eddie's frizzy hair coming down from its pins, and the hem of her skirt near her knees.

 

They go out and have two drinks apiece and then Bucky says he might have something stashed away at home. If Edna comes over maybe they can have a little fun. Sometimes she's up for it, sometimes she's not. But she says "Okay." Bucky has a little bit of bourbon tucked away for when Steve gets sick, but Steve can buy his own damn bourbon if that's the way he feels about it.

  
It's not that late, but it's late enough to wake the neighbors, so they're quiet climbing up the steps. But Steve's still up and he's sitting at the table looking like a storm cloud as Bucky comes in, but Bucky ignores him and rattles around under the sink till he finds the bourbon. It's down towards the bottom of the bottle but there's enough for a few. Edna sits herself down at the table and props her feet up on the other chair. She sure ain't shy, and she says "How are you doing, Stevie."

He says, "Fine, thanks," and goes back to pretending to read the paper or whatever he was doing, stewing there, waiting for Buck to get back so he could keep fighting about the goddamn coat. Buck gets out three glasses and sits down and splits the rest of the bourbon evenly between them.

"Cheers," he says, and he and Eddie clink glasses. "Too good for a drink with your pal?" he says to Steve, and Steve grudgingly raises his glass and takes a sip. Buck knows Eddie's watching but he can't help needling Steve a bit because he still miffed about earlier. He knows Steve knows why Eddie's here, but he doesn't have the decency to excuse himself so they can have a little privacy. He has to dig his heels in about everything.

Bucky stands up and goes to the ratty old sofa and lights one of Eddie's cigarettes. Then he lounges back and puts his heels on the crate they use as a coffee table because he knows Steve hates it. It's a goddamn crate, it's not like it's getting dirtier from him doing it.

"You been drawing much?" Edna asks Steve. Steve doesn't even bother to look at her and says, "Yeah, a bit."

"That's good," she says. "You were always real good."

The sensible thing would be for Steve to go into the bedroom and pretend to be asleep, but Buck thinks maybe him and Edna are gonna have to take the bedroom, and Steve can just wait. But Edna looks like she's settling in and she drinks her bourbon and says "What are you reading?"

"The paper."

Sarah Rogers was a lovely woman, God rest her soul, but she did not teach her knuckleheaded son any kind of manners. Steve's being like this on purpose. But Edna just laughs and says, "No shit." Then she stands up, and steps over to Bucky, takes his cigarette and snubs it out right on the goddamn crate. She hikes up her skirt, and straddles Buck's lap right there in the living room. She holds his face and lays one on him real good and Buck's hands instinctively slide up her thighs to cradle her hips. She rocks down against him and Buck's mouth slips open to let out a small sigh of relief. Edna tilts his head back and sucks on his lip, then touches her tongue to his, just a little bit, just a bit so you want more, and Bucky lets his jaw drop open, waiting for her. Waiting. She just breathes against his mouth and Buck nudges her lips a little, with his. She grinds down against him again and he closes the distance even closer between them, leaning up into her, panting, but she doesn't kiss him. She just breathes in the same air he's breathing, cradling his head in both hands.

A chair scrapes loud across the floor and Steve says, "The two of you could have a little decency," and without moving, Edna says, "You could stand to lighten up." Steve folds up the newspaper as loudly as humanly possible, and Bucky peers around Eddie's shirtsleeve to watch him. With his head turned like that, Eddie ducks in to kiss his neck just behind his ear and God, that feels good. Buck can feel his eyes drift closed but he's looking at Steve and now Steve's looking at him, and Steve never backs down from a fight. He thinks Eddie knows it because she slips her hand between them, undoes his fly, and wraps her fingers around his johnson, pulling it up out of his pants. That's it, Bucky lost this round and he breaks eye contact with Steve to moan softly into Eddie's neck. Steve starts banging around in the kitchen again, maybe even about to turn in, when Edna pulls away from Buck, looks dead at Steve and says "You done already?"

Steve stops what he's doing, his eyebrows one straight firm line like someone just took a crack at his mother. He's stubborn as a mule but he ain't gone toe to toe with Eddie. Bucky's a little not sure of what he's getting into, himself, but Edna's got it out for Steve now and she's squeezing Buck's dick real firm but gentle and turning his brain into butter. You shouldn't be rude to Eddie, is what the moral is. You should be nice, like Bucky. She pulses her hand and strokes him, and he'll do whatever the hell she wants, so long's she tells him what to do.

Steve kicks a chair around and sets himself into it like he's a much bigger guy than he is, and he crosses his arms and glowers at the two of them.

Edna says, "Stick around, you might learn something." Jesus.

"Go ahead," Steve says back, but he's talking to Bucky. "We'll see if you're nothing but talk, all these years."

He says it mean, though, like, and Buck's stomach flips over. He hates fighting with Steve, and he hates making it worse like he's doing tonight, bringing Edna over. He shouldn't've done this to Edna, either, getting her in the middle of it, but it's not like he did it on purpose, or maybe he did-

"It ain't just talk," Edna says. She lifts a leg over and falls back against the arm of the couch now with her knees spread, and she raises an eyebrow at Buck in that way.

She wants him to do that? Here, right now, in front of Steve? But she's got a finger in his shirt collar and she tugs him in between her legs, and he's not just talk, he's good at this, and he worked real hard to get that way, so fuck Steve.

(Not that it was work.)

He runs his hands down her thighs real slow, rustles up her skirt up out of the way.

"Show him," she says in this kind of breathy way and she's looking at Bucky right in the eye and kind of panting and her lips are wet and Bucky leans over her and braces an arm on the couch near her head and he leans in and kisses her nice and deep and long, but not hard. Edna deserves to be treated nice. She works hard and she catches a lot of flack from the old folks around town who say she's not reputable and they don't like her old man. Bucky shifts back and circles his hands light around her knees, then down her legs to the top of her knickers, and he tugs lightly and she lifts her hips, and he takes them off slowly, one leg at a time. He loves doing this. There's no reason to rush.

He's almost kind of forgotten about Steve and he leans down and touches his nose to her hair down there. He nuzzles her thigh and slips two fingers between her labia, spreading them apart. You don't want the hair, you want the soft, smooth part inside, and when she's spread like this, you can see the rosy pinkness of her skin and the way she's slick already, glistening. It makes Bucky's breath catch, and he catches some of that slick on the flat of his tongue and licks firm, broad, upwards to her clitoris, that little nub, and he takes it in his mouth and suckles gently, rubbing his hands wide around her thighs and over her flat little butt. He suckles harder and then sinks two fingers right up inside of her, easy, and eases out and thrusts back in. She moans, a muffled noise like she's doing it into her hand. It means she likes it, Buck's doing a good job, but Steve, the little shit, says, "No fair exaggerating." Buck knows Enda and he knows she's flicking Steve off as Buck lifts his fingers up against her pelvic bone from inside her, pressing his fingertips for that sweet spot and just feeling the dips and smooth patches women have all in there, the muscles that tighten up when you're getting close.

Bucky swirls his tongue around her clitoris. The trick is intent. Enthusiasm's good, but there's no point being sloppy. Edna taught him that, that's how he got good at this in the first place. Eddie's always good at saying what she wants. How else are you supposed to know? He pushes his tongue flat again so his chin is against his hand, still working inside her, and he presses hard. She likes the weight. Not all chicks do, not all of them even want him to do this, they thinks it's gross or something, but Bucky doesn't think it's gross. Edna pants above him, she's making a small breathy noise in the back of her throat but Buck can tell she's trying to be quiet. You've gotta be, anyway, with the walls so thin and all. Eddie sinks her fingers into his hair and she does something that just makes his brain melt when he's down there and he's got the warmth of her thighs on either side of his face, that musky smell rising up from her and the weight of her leg on his back, and she just squeezes a fistful of Bucky's hair and he just goes to butter, his eyes slide closed and his mouth drops open and he just waits while she holds him there, breathing and looking. Bucky can feel his dick still hanging out of his pants. The way he's sitting sideways on the couch to get an angle on Eddie, he knows Steve can see it, but he can't care when she's got him like this. He can't care about anything.

Eddie lets his hair go and strokes the back of his head and he dives back in, panting a little against her and feeling desperate to have her in his mouth again. He noses aside her labia and catches her clitoris against his tongue again and sucks it into his mouth, sucks down and surges against her. He pulls his fingers out so he can slip a third one inside, stretching her because he keeps them side by side flat, not tucked. He wiggles his tongue against her and he feels her curl up around him, moaning into her hand. She's got a grip on the back of his head, pressing him closer, and then Bucky's foot slips where it's braced on the floor and he loses his leverage but Edna doesn't let go of his head. He tries to shift and one leg is under him funny kind of squeezing his balls so he braces his free hand on the edge of the couch and tries to shift up, and when he does that, Edna tugs his face up to hers and they catch their breath for a minute. There's a shuffling noise to the side there, and Bucky had forgotten about Steve, and when he glances over he can tell Steve's pitching a tent in his pants alright. Don't ever say Buck's all talk.

Edna kisses him once and then leans back and Buck gets back to work, pumping his fingers hard how she likes, and sucking her hard with his tongue tucked down around her, and then he feels it, that way she gets tight up inside. He pushes his fingers as deep as they'll go, pressing up forward, and sucking her clit long and hard like he's gonna suck the orgasm right out of her. She goes so stiff, and then those muscles are pulsing inside her, and Bucky rides it out with her, relaxing as she does and sucking hard when she seizes again. Relaxing, then sucking again, hard.

When it's finally over she collapses back against the couch with her wrist slung over her forehead, her other hand stroking Bucky's hair above his ear. He likes this part too, this quiet part, though his dick's still aching in the breeze.

There's another sound of labored breathing, Steve's breath getting tight. Bucky knows every sound of Steve's breathing, and it ain't asthma right now. Steve's fists are clenched tight against his knees. But Bucky doesn't want to spend too much time looking, putting Stevie on the spot. Edna strokes his hair again, and then she leans up, pushing him back until he shifts all the way back and she's on top of him with his dick in her fist and she's pumping him and he's breathing hard, pained in relief, through his open mouth, and that's when Steve's chair scrapes again across the floor and he escapes to the bedroom. Eddie's won. Stupid Steve doesn't realize they all could've won, tonight.

Edna fits her mouth to his and sucks on his tongue, and Buck's gone. She owns him.

 

Later on he's walking her home. It's pretty late. He says, "Aren't you gonna marry me, Eddie?"

She says, "No."

He shoves his hands in his pockets and ducks forward so he can look at her face. "Why not?"

"'Cause I don't want to."

How do you like that! Bucky gives her a real big sigh. It's kind of wet out again like it was last night. Not raining, but misty like it might as well be. He knows sometimes Edna's pop gets rough with her, and did sometimes with her mother, too, before.

"Your roommate's got a bug up his ass about something," she says.

"It's just Steve."

He's kind of thinking about how he liked doing that, with Steve there. But maybe Steve didn't like it. Maybe he just stayed because Eddie challenged him. Maybe he didn't want to stay. But if he and Eddie got married, she'd understand about Steve.

If one of them was a gal, he'd marry Steve in a heartbeat. He'd be a gal if he could marry Steve. He doesn't tell anyone he thinks about these things, about whether he could pass for a dame or Stevie could and they'd move out to Iowa where no one knows them and they'd have a little house with chickens and a chicken coop and a flower bed and they'd be happy and no one would ever have to know and Steve would let Buck be nice to him every day and hold him every night and he'd never get sick again and they'd have enough money and they would save up and buy a car and go driving around on weekends. That's what Bucky thinks about sometimes, when he's got nothing else to think about.

When they get to Edna's doorstep, he kisses her forehead and then hugs her real close and she tucks her head under his chin. He wishes he could protect her from everything, and take her away from this sad, tired life too. But she doesn't want him to. He doesn't know that he could anyway. It's all just dreams. He and Steve and Eddie could all live together on a farm in Nebraska and raise horses. Maybe someplace a bit warmer than Nebraska.

She pulls away and says, "Take care of yourself, Bucky."

He rustles up a grin for her and waits till she's inside, then turns around to head home, alone.

 

Everything's dark when he gets there, but Steve's not snoring, which means he's awake. Bucky doesn't bother with the light, he just strips and gets into his bed. He feels good but not good. He always feels good after a night with Edna. But everything else is such shit. He's just tired of it.

"You don't gotta keep the coat," he tells Steve. His voice is softer than he'd thought it would be. Scratchier. Maybe Steve is asleep, anyway. "I just worry about you," he says. Even softer, "You make me sick with worry." He presses his hand over his eyes. Why does everything have to be like this? He wishes he could make it better. He wishes shit could be better for everyone. Tomorrow he's gotta go and tell Marcy he can't take her for brunch at the Plaza. He never will be able to. He only ever wishes he can do these things.

He swallows around the lump in his throat. He's not going to lay here crying about it. Tomorrow's Sunday, anyway. Only one more day before he has to wake up and go back to work.

**Author's Note:**

> Ask me anything on [tumblr](http://yeahcoolduck.tumblr.com)!


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